Chapter 56

"The pang, the curse with which they died,
Had never passed away:
I could not draw my eyes from theirs,
Nor lift them up to pray."
- COLERIDGE.

Deronda did not take off his clothes that night. Gwendolen, after
insisting on seeing him again before she would consent to be undressed,
had been perfectly quiet, and had only asked him, with a whispering,
repressed eagerness, to promise that he would come to her when she sent
for him in the morning. Still, the possibility that a change might come
over her, the danger of a supervening feverish condition, and the
suspicion that something in the late catastrophe was having an effect
which might betray itself in excited words, acted as a foreboding within
him. He mentioned to her attendant that he should keep himself ready to be
called if there were any alarming change of symptoms, making it understood
by all concerned that he was in communication with her friends in England,
and felt bound meanwhile to take all care on her behalf - a position which
it was the easier for him to assume, because he was well known to
Grandcourt's valet, the only old servant who had come on the late voyage.

But when fatigue from the strangely various emotion of the day at last
sent Deronda to sleep, he remained undisturbed except by the morning
dreams, which came as a tangled web of yesterday's events, and finally
waked him, with an image drawn by his pressing anxiety.

Still, it was morning, and there had been no summons - an augury which
cheered him while he made his toilet, and reflected that it was too early
to send inquiries. Later, he learned that she had passed a too wakeful
night, but had shown no violent signs of agitation, and was at last
sleeping. He wondered at the force that dwelt in this creature, so alive
to dread; for he had an irresistible impression that even under the
effects of a severe physical shock she was mastering herself with a
determination of concealment. For his own part, he thought that his
sensibilities had been blunted by what he had been going through in the
meeting with his mother: he seemed to himself now to be only fulfilling
claims, and his more passionate sympathy was in abeyance. He had lately
been living so keenly in an experience quite apart from Gwendolen's lot,
that his present cares for her were like a revisiting of scenes familiar
in the past, and there was not yet a complete revival of the inward
response to them.

Meanwhile he employed himself in getting a formal, legally recognized
statement from the fisherman who had rescued Gwendolen. Few details came
to light. The boat in which Grandcourt had gone out had been found
drifting with its sail loose, and had been towed in. The fishermen thought
it likely that he had been knocked overboard by the flapping of the sail
while putting about, and that he had not known how to swim; but, though
they were near, their attention had been first arrested by a cry which
seemed like that of a man in distress, and while they were hastening with
their oars, they heard a shriek from the lady, and saw her jump in.

On re-entering the hotel, Deronda was told that Gwendolen had risen, and
was desiring to see him. He was shown into a room darkened by blinds and
curtains, where she was seated with a white shawl wrapped round her,
looking toward the opening door like one waiting uneasily. But her long
hair was gathered up and coiled carefully, and, through all, the blue
stars in her ears had kept their place: as she started impulsively to her
full height, sheathed in her white shawl, her face and neck not less
white, except for a purple line under her eyes, her lips a little apart
with the peculiar expression of one accused and helpless, she looked like
the unhappy ghost of that Gwendolen Harleth whom Deronda had seen turning
with firm lips and proud self-possession from her losses at the gaming
table. The sight pierced him with pity, and the effects of all their past
relations began to revive within him.

"I beseech you to rest - not to stand," said Deronda, as he approached her;
and she obeyed, falling back into her chair again.

"Will you sit down near me?" she said. "I want to speak very low."

She was in a large arm-chair, and he drew a small one near to her side.
The action seemed to touch her peculiarly: turning her pale face full upon
his, which was very near, she said, in the lowest audible tone, "You know
I am a guilty woman?"

Deronda himself turned paler as he said, "I know nothing." He did not dare
to say more.

"He is dead." She uttered this with the same undertoned decision.

"Yes," said Deronda, in a mournful suspense which made him reluctant to
speak.

"His face will not be seen above the water again," said Gwendolen, in a
tone that was not louder, but of a suppressed eagerness, while she held
both her hands clenched.

"No."

"Not by any one else - only by me - a dead face - I shall never get away from
it."

It was with an inward voice of desperate self-repression that she spoke
these last words, while she looked away from Deronda toward something at a
distance from her on the floor. She was seeing the whole event - her own
acts included - through an exaggerating medium of excitement and horror?
Was she in a state of delirium into which there entered a sense of
concealment and necessity for self-repression? Such thoughts glanced
through Deronda as a sort of hope. But imagine the conflict of feeling
that kept him silent. She was bent on confession, and he dreaded hearing
her confession. Against his better will he shrank from the task that was
laid on him: he wished, and yet rebuked the wish as cowardly, that she
could bury her secrets in her own bosom. He was not a priest. He dreaded
the weight of this woman's soul flung upon his own with imploring
dependence. But she spoke again, hurriedly, looking at him -

"You will not say that I ought to tell the world? you will not say that I
ought to be disgraced? I could not do it. I could not bear it. I cannot
have my mother know. Not if I were dead. I could not have her know. I must
tell you; but you will not say that any one else should know."

"I can say nothing in my ignorance," said Deronda, mournfully, "except
that I desire to help you."

"I told you from the beginning - as soon as I could - I told you I was
afraid of myself." There was a piteous pleading in the low murmur in which
Deronda turned his ear only. Her face afflicted him too much. "I felt a
hatred in me that was always working like an evil spirit - contriving
things. Everything I could do to free myself came into my mind; and it got
worse - all things got worse. That is why I asked you to come to me in
town. I thought then I would tell you the worst about myself. I tried. But
I could not tell everything. And he came in."

She paused, while a shudder passed through her; but soon went on.

"I will tell you everything now. Do you think a woman who cried, and
prayed, and struggled to be saved from herself, could be a murderess?"

"Great God!" said Deronda, in a deep, shaken voice, "don't torture me
needlessly. You have not murdered him. You threw yourself into the water
with the impulse to save him. Tell me the rest afterward. This death was
an accident that you could not have hindered."

"Don't be impatient with me." The tremor, the childlike beseeching in
these words compelled Deronda to turn his head and look at her face. The
poor quivering lips went on. "You said - you used to say - you felt more for
those who had done something wicked and were miserable; you said they
might get better - they might be scourged into something better. If you had
not spoken in that way, Everything would have been worse. I did remember
all you said to me. It came to me always. It came to me at the very last -
that was the reason why I - But now, if you cannot bear with me when I tell
you everything - if you turn away from me and forsake me, what shall I do?
Am I worse than I was when you found me and wanted to make me better? All
the wrong I have done was in me then - and more - and more - if you had not
come and been patient with me. And now - will you forsake me?"

Her hands, which had been so tightly clenched some minutes before, were
now helplessly relaxed and trembling on the arm of her chair. Her
quivering lips remained parted as she ceased speaking. Deronda could not
answer; he was obliged to look away. He took one of her hands, and clasped
it as if they were going to walk together like two children: it was the
only way in which he could answer, "I will not forsake you." And all the
while he felt as if he were putting his name to a blank paper which might
be filled up terribly. Their attitude, his adverted face with its
expression of a suffering which he was solemnly resolved to undergo, might
have told half the truth of the situation to a beholder who had suddenly
entered.

That grasp was an entirely new experience to Gwendolen: she had never
before had from any man a sign of tenderness which her own being had
needed, and she interpreted its powerful effect on her into a promise of
inexhaustible patience and constancy. The stream of renewed strength made
it possible for her to go on as she had begun - with that fitful, wandering
confession where the sameness of experience seems to nullify the sense of
time or of order in events. She began again in a fragmentary way -

"All sorts of contrivances in my mind - but all so difficult. And I fought
against them - I was terrified at them - I saw his dead face" - here her
voice sank almost to a whisper close to Deronda's ear - "ever so long ago
I saw it and I wished him to be dead. And yet it terrified me. I was like
two creatures. I could not speak - I wanted to kill - it was as strong as
thirst - and then directly - I felt beforehand I had done something
dreadful, unalterable - that would make me like an evil spirit. And it
came - it came."

She was silent a moment or two, as if her memory had lost itself in a web
where each mesh drew all the rest.

"It had all been in my mind when I first spoke to you - when we were at the
Abbey. I had done something then. I could not tell you that. It was the
only thing I did toward carrying out my thoughts. They went about over
everything; but they all remained like dreadful dreams - all but one. I did
one act - and I never undid it - it is there still - as long ago as when we
were at Ryelands. There it was - something my fingers longed for among the
beautiful toys in the cabinet in my boudoir - small and sharp like a long
willow leaf in a silver sheath. I locked it in the drawer of my dressing-
case. I was continually haunted with it and how I should use it. I fancied
myself putting it under my pillow. But I never did. I never looked at it
again. I dared not unlock the drawer: it had a key all to itself; and not
long ago, when we were in the yacht, I dropped the key into the deep
water. It was my wish to drop it and deliver myself. After that I began to
think how I could open the drawer without the key: and when I found we
were to stay at Genoa, it came into my mind that I could get it opened
privately at the hotel. But then, when we were going up the stairs, I met
you; and I thought I should talk to you alone and tell you this -
everything I could not tell you in town; and then I was forced to go out
in the boat."

A sob had for the first time risen with the last words, and she sank back
in her chair. The memory of that acute disappointment seemed for the
moment to efface what had come since. Deronda did not look at her, but he
said, insistently -

"And it has all remained in your imagination. It has gone on only in your
thought. To the last the evil temptation has been resisted?"

There was silence. The tears had rolled down her cheeks. She pressed her
handkerchief against them and sat upright. She was summoning her
resolution; and again, leaning a little toward Deronda's ear, she began in
a whisper -

"No, no; I will tell you everything as God knows it. I will tell you no
falsehood; I will tell you the exact truth. What should I do else? I used
to think I could never be wicked. I thought of wicked people as if they
were a long way off me. Since then I have been wicked. I have felt wicked.
And everything has been a punishment to me - all the things I used to wish
for - it is as if they had been made red-hot. The very daylight has often
been a punishment to me. Because - you know - I ought not to have married.
That was the beginning of it. I wronged some one else. I broke my promise.
I meant to get pleasure for myself, and it all turned to misery. I wanted
to make my gain out of another's loss - you remember? - it was like
roulette - and the money burned into me. And I could not complain. It was
as if I had prayed that another should lose and I should win. And I had
won, I knew it all - I knew I was guilty. When we were on the sea, and I
lay awake at night in the cabin, I sometimes felt that everything I had
done lay open without excuse - nothing was hidden - how could anything be
known to me only? - it was not my own knowledge, it was God's that had
entered into me, and even the stillness - everything held a punishment for
me - everything but you. I always thought that you would not want me to be
punished - you would have tried and helped me to be better. And only
thinking of that helped me. You will not change - you will not want to
punish me now?"

Again a sob had risen.

"God forbid!" groaned Deronda. But he sat motionless.

This long wandering with the conscious-stricken one over her past was
difficult to bear, but he dared not again urge her with a question. He
must let her mind follow its own need. She unconsciously left intervals in
her retrospect, not clearly distinguishing between what she said and what
she had only an inward vision of. Her next words came after such an
interval.

"That all made it so hard when I was forced to go in the boat. Because
when I saw you it was an unexpected joy, and I thought I could tell you
everything - about the locked-up drawer and what I had not told you before.
And if I had told you, and knew it was in your mind, it would have less
power over me. I hoped and trusted in that. For after all my struggles and
my crying, the hatred and rage, the temptation that frightened me, the
longing, the thirst for what I dreaded, always came back. And that
disappointment - when I was quite shut out from speaking to you, and was
driven to go in the boat - brought all the evil back, as if I had been
locked in a prison with it and no escape. Oh, it seems so long ago now
since I stepped into that boat! I could have given up everything in that
moment, to have the forked lightning for a weapon to strike him dead."

Some of the compressed fierceness that she was recalling seemed to find
its way into her undertoned utterance. After a little silence she said,
with agitated hurry -

"If he were here again, what should I do? I cannot wish him here - and yet
I cannot bear his dead face. I was a coward. I ought to have borne
contempt. I ought to have gone away - gone and wandered like a beggar
rather than to stay to feel like a fiend. But turn where I would there was
something I could not bear. Sometimes I thought he would kill me if I
resisted his will. But now - his dead face is there, and I cannot bear it."

Suddenly loosing Deronda's hand, she started up, stretching her arms to
their full length upward, and said with a sort of moan -

"I have been a cruel woman! What can I do but cry for help? I am
sinking. Die - die - you are forsaken - go down, go down into darkness.
Forsaken - no pity - I shall be forsaken."

She sank in her chair again and broke into sobs. Even Deronda had no place
in her consciousness at that moment. He was completely unmanned. Instead
of finding, as he had imagined, that his late experience had dulled his
susceptibility to fresh emotion, it seemed that the lot of this young
creature, whose swift travel from her bright rash girlhood into this agony
of remorse he had had to behold in helplessness, pierced him the deeper
because it came close upon another sad revelation of spiritual conflict:
he was in one of those moments when the very anguish of passionate pity
makes us ready to choose that we will know pleasure no more, and live only
for the stricken and afflicted. He had risen from his seat while he
watched that terrible outburst - which seemed the more awful to him
because, even in this supreme agitation, she kept the suppressed voice of
one who confesses in secret. At last he felt impelled to turn his back
toward her and walk to a distance.

But presently there was stillness. Her mind had opened to the sense that
he had gone away from her. When Deronda turned round to approach her
again, he saw her face bent toward him, her eyes dilated, her lips parted.
She was an image of timid forlorn beseeching - too timid to entreat in
words while he kept himself aloof from her. Was she forsaken by him - now -
already? But his eyes met hers sorrowfully - met hers for the first time
fully since she had said, "You know I am a guilty woman," and that full
glance in its intense mournfulness seemed to say, "I know it, but I shall
all the less forsake you." He sat down by her side again in the same
attitude - without turning his face toward her and without again taking her
hand.

Once more Gwendolen was pierced, as she had been by his face of sorrow at
the Abbey, with a compunction less egoistic than that which urged her to
confess, and she said, in a tone of loving regret -

"I make you very unhappy."

Deronda gave an indistinct "Oh," just shrinking together and changing his
attitude a little, Then he had gathered resolution enough to say clearly,
"There is no question of being happy or unhappy. What I most desire at
this moment is what will most help you. Tell me all you feel it a relief
to tell."

Devoted as these words were, they widened his spiritual distance from her,
and she felt it more difficult to speak: she had a vague need of getting
nearer to that compassion which seemed to be regarding her from a halo of
superiority, and the need turned into an impulse to humble herself more.
She was ready to throw herself on her knees before him; but no - her
wonderfully mixed consciousness held checks on that impulse, and she was
kept silent and motionless by the pressure of opposing needs. Her
stillness made Deronda at last say -

"Perhaps you are too weary. Shall I go away, and come again whenever you
wish it?"

"No, no," said Gwendolen - the dread of his leaving her bringing back her
power of speech. She went on with her low-toned eagerness, "I want to tell
you what it was that came over me in that boat. I was full of rage at
being obliged to go - full of rage - and I could do nothing but sit there
like a galley slave. And then we got away - out of the port - into the deep
- and everything was still - and we never looked at each other, only he
spoke to order me - and the very light about me seemed to hold me a
prisoner and force me to sit as I did. It came over me that when I was a
child I used to fancy sailing away into a world where people were not
forced to live with any one they did not like - I did not like my father-
in-law to come home. And now, I thought, just the opposite had come to me.
I had stepped into a boat, and my life was a sailing and sailing away -
gliding on and no help - always into solitude with him, away from
deliverance. And because I felt more helpless than ever, my thoughts went
out over worse things - I longed for worse things - I had cruel wishes - I
fancied impossible ways of - I did not want to die myself; I was afraid of
our being drowned together. If it had been any use I should have prayed - I
should have prayed that something might befall him. I should have prayed
that he might sink out of my sight and leave me alone. I knew no way of
killing hint there, but I did, I did kill him in my thoughts."

She sank into silence for a minute, submerged by the weight of memory
which no words could represent.

"But yet, all the while I felt that I was getting more wicked. And what
had been with me so much, came to me just then - what you once said - about
dreading to increase my wrong-doing and my remorse - I should hope for
nothing then. It was all like a writing of fire within me. Getting wicked
was misery - being shut out forever from knowing what you - what better
lives were. That had always been coming back to me then - but yet with a
despair - a feeling that it was no use - evil wishes were too strong. I
remember then letting go the tiller and saying 'God help me!' But then I
was forced to take it again and go on; and the evil longings, the evil
prayers came again and blotted everything else dim, till, in the midst of
them - I don't know how it was - he was turning the sail - there was a gust -
he was struck - I know nothing - I only know that I saw my wish outside me."

She began to speak more hurriedly, and in more of a whisper.

"I saw him sink, and my heart gave a leap as if it were going out of me. I
think I did not move. I kept my hands tight. It was long enough for me to
be glad, and yet to think it was no use - he would come up again. And he
was come - farther off - the boat had moved. It was all like lightning.
'The rope!' he called out in a voice - not his own - I hear it now - and I
stooped for the rope - I felt I must - I felt sure he could swim, and he
would come back whether or not, and I dreaded him. That was in my mind - he
would come back. But he was gone down again, and I had the rope in my
hand - no, there he was again - his face above the water - and he cried
again - and I held my hand, and my heart said, 'Die!' - and he sank; and I
felt 'It is done - I am wicked, I am lost! - and I had the rope in my hand -
I don't know what I thought - I was leaping away from myself - I would have
saved him then. I was leaping from my crime, and there it was - close to me
as I fell - there was the dead face - dead, dead. It can never be altered.
That was what happened. That was what I did. You know it all. It can never
be altered."

She sank back in her chair, exhausted with the agitation of memory and
speech. Deronda felt the burden on his spirit less heavy than the
foregoing dread. The word "guilty" had held a possibility of
interpretations worse than the fact; and Gwendolen's confession, for the
very reason that her conscience made her dwell on the determining power of
her evil thoughts, convinced him the more that there had been throughout a
counterbalancing struggle of her better will. It seemed almost certain
that her murderous thought had had no outward effect - that, quite apart
from it, the death was inevitable. Still, a question as to the outward
effectiveness of a criminal desire dominant enough to impel even a
momentary act, cannot alter our judgment of the desire; and Deronda shrank
from putting that question forward in the first instance. He held it
likely that Gwendolen's remorse aggravated her inward guilt, and that she
gave the character of decisive action to what had been an inappreciably
instantaneous glance of desire. But her remorse was the precious sign of a
recoverable nature; it was the culmination of that self-disapproval which
had been the awakening of a new life within her; it marked her off from
the criminals whose only regret is failure in securing their evil wish.
Deronda could not utter one word to diminish that sacred aversion to her
worst self - that thorn-pressure which must come with the crowning of the
sorrowful better, suffering because of the worse. All this mingled thought
and feeling kept him silent; speech was too momentous to be ventured on
rashly. There were no words of comfort that did not carry some sacrilege.
If he had opened his lips to speak, he could only have echoed, "It can
never be altered - it remains unaltered, to alter other things." But he was
silent and motionless - he did not know how long - before he turned to look
at her, and saw her sunk back with closed eyes, like a lost, weary, storm-
beaten white doe, unable to rise and pursue its unguided way. He rose and
stood before her. The movement touched her consciousness, and she opened
her eyes with a slight quivering that seemed like fear.

"You must rest now. Try to rest: try to sleep. And may I see you again
this evening - to-morrow - when you have had some rest? Let us say no more
now."

The tears came, and she could not answer except by a slight movement of
the head. Deronda rang for attendance, spoke urgently of the necessity
that she should be got to rest, and then left her.